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Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

nytimes.com

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Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#23

Post by ineedasername »

ListenLinda wrote: post #9
jeffwass wrote: post #3

The key point in the briefing (and the “developing” article is fairly brief) is that Amazon was considered the front-runner for contract, but Trump has a personal vendetta against Amazon/Bezos and also made comments that he’d get personally involved in the JEDI decision (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure). So of course this invites the question of whether petty politics influenced a $10B govt deal.

I haven’t done any research but I wonder if trump has it in for Amazon since they have a monopoly that so far hasn’t been challenged much.

I don't think he cares about any issue of monopoly. It has much more to do with negative coverage of Trump in the Washington Post. It appears Bezos has a very hands-off approach in terms of editorial direction there, but Trump still blames him for the coverage.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#26

Post by rshnotsecure »

Since the early 2000s, Microsoft has done a significant amount of work for the NSA. AWS has had GovCloud, and it is true the CIA uses AWS, but MSFT has built out quite well some of the more exotic requests of the NSA.

The crown jewel of the NSA’s MSFT partnership is the San Antonio, Texas data center. The “5150 Rogers Road” data center was chosen because Texas has cheap electricity, which is an enormous cost outlay for the NSA. Additionally, and the FBI chose San Antonio for a significant presence as well because of this, is Texas has a separate electrical grid from the rest of the US.

Also San Antonio has something like 4 military bases. Ft. Sam Houston where the Army medics train, Lackland Air Force Base (home of cybercommand for the Air Force), Kelley Air Force Base, and perhaps even 1 or 2 I can’t recall.

120 minutes to the north is the recently established Army Futures Command in Austin, along with Ft. Hood in Killeen, the Army’s largest base in the world.

AWS does not currently have a data center in Texas, which has always frustrated the Texas government. They did establish a shipping center in San Marcos, but even GCO is building out in Dallas where IBM Cloud has a data center, and Oracle Cloud has an Austin data center.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#28

Post by soniman »

jeffwass wrote: post #3

The key point in the briefing (and the “developing” article is fairly brief) is that Amazon was considered the front-runner for contract, but Trump has a personal vendetta against Amazon/Bezos and also made comments that he’d get personally involved in the JEDI decision (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure). So of course this invites the question of whether petty politics influenced a $10B govt deal.

If Amazon losing this deal makes US oligarchs think twice about getting involved in politics, it's probably a good thing.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#30

Post by Analemma_ »

foob4r wrote: post #5

I wonder how azure employees feel about this.

Former Microsoftie here.

I imagine there will be a lot of unrest inside the company about this, and I think things are about to get tricky for Nadella. Up until now he's been largely able to be above a lot of the labor disputes that have been roiling the other FAANGs recently, but that's mostly out of luck: Microsoft's business doesn't involve arbitrating culture war disputes on social media or search reuslts, nor employing underpaid warehouse workers. But now there's going to be no way to wiggle out of the fact that this money is coming from Trump's DoD, and $10 billion isn't a paltry sum that they can just wave off to claim the moral high ground.

Satya's next "fireside chat" is going to be tremendously awkward, I think.

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